Just let me come home (From Penarth Times)

Just let me come home

A PENARTH man says he is "losing the will to live" after his pleas to be rehoused in his home town went unanswered.

Disabled Roger Griffiths, 51, who lived in Penarth for 26 years, has been forced to move to Rhoose due to a council homes shortage - a transfer that has left the former St Cyres School caretaker, bitter, depressed and "feeling like a fish out of water".

Mr Griffiths told the Times: "My problems began when my health deteriorated. In 1998, two discs in my spine prolapsed.

"I had operations in June, August and October. I have metal plates in my spine, and nearly lost my life twice."

The pain eventually forced Mr Griffiths to retire from St Cyres on grounds of ill-health thus losing his three-bedroomed home in the school grounds.

He said: "The school needed the house back. But I dug my heels in until August 2000, waiting for the Vale of Glamorgan Council to find me a place in Penarth." But Mr Griffiths was out of luck, and had to join a long queue.

Vale of Glamorgan Council policy means that residents of Prince Charles Court, known locally as the Billy Banks, take priority.

They urgently need to be rehoused as part of a redevelopment plan but if they are not satisfied with the housing offered them, they can refuse to move.

And until this backlog is sorted out, all other Penarth rehousing cases are being put on hold.

Mr Griffiths says the situation has left him with severe depression.

"These people are causing me misery," he said. "If they would only co-operate, others in my position could move through the system. I miss everything about Penarth. My friends, my family. I lived there since January 1, 1976, and I want to come home."